BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 27. This week, Deputy Minister of Energy of Azerbaijan Elnur Soltanov announced that Bulgaria is eager to join the project for green energy exports via the Black Sea.
According to the deputy minister, Bulgaria is expected to join the agreement on the creation of a transmission line along the bottom of the Black Sea from the Caspian Sea to Europe between Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and Hungary, which was inked in December last year, very soon.
"Feasibility study should tell us how to proceed. We’re finalizing terms of reference. In a year we will have clear picture on how to move forward," he also said, commenting upon the development of this project.
As Romanian Energy Minister Virgil-Daniel Popescu reported, during the assessment conducted by CESI, an Italian consultant, to explore the feasibility and potential benefits of constructing an underwater cable between Romania and Georgia, various technical and financial aspects were thoroughly evaluated and subsequently presented.
"The preliminary results of the study are being analyzed and assessed at the levels of the 4 signatories, including from the point of view of considering these results in the framework of a more extended study that was proposed to be performed and that will go beyond the construction of the submarine cable, assessing the possibility of producing and absorbing green energy in the 4 signatory countries and in Europe," he said.
Moreover, Egidijus Navikas, Ambassador of Lithuania to Azerbaijan, said that Lithuania may provide renewable energy technologies to Azerbaijan. In this regard, Lithuanian businesses are expected to make proposals to the Azerbaijani side in this field.
Furthermore, as Spokesman for the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) Orkhan Huseynov announced this week, Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan will host a special session of the Baku Energy Week which is scheduled for May 31 - June 2, 2023. According to him, the special session in Nakhchivan will be entitled ‘Nakhchivan and Eastern Zangazur: the potential of green energy’.
Another important milestone has been achieved this week resulting in an agreement on energy cooperation inked between Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia. Although, no further details of this document have been disclosed yet.
On oil and gas news. Slovnaft refinery of Hungarian MOL Group has announced that the first batch (around 89 kilotons) of Azeri light crude was already processed in early May.
At the same time, as the Azerbaijani Parliamentary Committee on Economic Policy, Industry, and Entrepreneurship reported this week, the average price of a barrel of Azeri Light oil on the world market was $103.6 in 2022, which is 44.7 percent more than the average price in 2021 and 21.8 percent more than the indicator taken as the basis for the revision of the Azerbaijani state budget for last year.
Meanwhile, as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Economic Relations of Hungary Péter Szijjarto said at a press conference held this week, the significant influx of Azerbaijani gas into Europe will be impeded without financial assistance from the European Union for the modernization of the pipeline system in the southeastern region of the continent.
"We demand that Brussels allocate funds from the EU budget for the development of infrastructure for gas supplies in South-Eastern Europe," he said, adding that "Brussels has been passive" so far, and without him it would be impossible to finance such large-scale work.
Szijjarto also added that Hungary is expected to receive the first 100 million cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas by the end of 2023.
Romanian Minister of Energy Virgil-Daniel Popescu, in turn, announced that, building upon the MoU signed in October 2022 between SOCAR and ROMGAZ, Romania and Azerbaijan have put forth a proposal to jointly explore the possibilities for a liquefied natural gas project in the Black Sea. This project holds the potential to bolster strategic security objectives in Romania's natural gas supply and source diversification, while also highlighting the Republic of Azerbaijan as a significant gas supplier for Europe, he added.
At the same time, as Deputy Minister Elnur Soltanov announced this week, the cost of the expansion of the Southern Gas Corridor, the main pipeline for gas exports to Europe, has been determined at $20 million.
"Azerbaijan does have resources to increase the capacity of its natural gas pipelines. It general, it will require about $20 billion both upstream and midstream. We’re working with European institutions, including financial institutions to understand the terms of financing of that," the deputy minister said during discussions on EU-Azerbaijan energy cooperation.